Thursday, February 05, 2015

The UK is going to the polls in May, and with less than a hundred days to go, it looks like the Labour party will be wiped out in Scotland:

Make no mistake, Labour’s crisis in Scotland is profound. That’s the inescapable conclusion of Lord Ashcroft’s 14 constituency polls that show the party losing all but one of the Labour-held seats surveyed.

The swing from Labour to the Scottish National party (SNP) is above 20% in all 14 of those seats – the average is 25% – the kind of shift that is arguably seen only once in a generation.

That is not all. More troubling for Labour is the fact that among all voters under 44, support for the SNP is nearly double that of Labour. The SNP leads across all age groups, except among those aged 65 and above.

And these are in Labour's strongest seats. The weaker ones are going to be an even bigger bloodbath. All up, the SNP is expected to win 54 of Scotland's 59 seats, with Labour shrinking from 41 to 4. Which will put them at the heat of any future coalition deal on current polling, and hopefully drive a further devolution of power from London to Scotland.

And that's what happens when you sell out your constituency to London bankers while opposing Scottish independence: your voters find someone who will better represent their interests. The question is whether UK Labour will learn that lesson, or whether they'll just keep on with the same politics of betrayal.